Chapter Text
“I am the patron saint of lost causes
Are we all to you just mere lost causes”
-(*fin) by Anberlin
He found them as little more than a heap of scrap, left for dead in Limbo's chapel. Red metal on red stone under red skies.
They woke up in a barren room filled with familiar tools, in a broken body filled with familiar fear.
They didn't trust him. He didn't trust them. They refused to speak and he refused to free them. They spent days locked in that barren little room.
He brought them blood in gilded silver cups and they nodded their silent thanks. He repaired their one remaining arm and they murmured a quiet thank you.
He brought the tools back and let them use what they wished. They fixed what damage they could and he watched, faceless but intent. They still only had one arm. There was only so much they could do. He offered to help and they…
…they just wanted to be whole again.
So they whispered yes, please and hands far too gentle for their size pieced them back together. He told them his story as he worked. His name was Minos. He was king of two fallen kingdoms. He was imprisoned for a long time. He mourned for humanity.
They were the child of humanity.
The second child, the useless one, but their child nonetheless. So he tended to them and treated them kindly. He asked for their name, and they said they didn't have one. He asked for their story, and they said it was too short to tell.
They asked for more of his stories instead. So he told them more: of moonlit cities and traitorous angels, of burning sands and a golden warrior and a great rebellion, of love and loss and death and rebirth.
He opened the door to that barren little room, and they followed him through ruined hallways and scorched gardens and museums of rubble.
The two stood, side by side, and watched worms crawl under the skin of a corpse.
Stay, he asked them. Find peace. Find purpose. Share my home. Stay.
And they…
…they just wanted a home again.
So they took his hand. And they stayed.